dancing

i'll come following you, for you seem to know
the many tricks and fabulations that i need
my own are deceptions far too subtle for the place
we make shelter gainst these brickey walls
cold, even in the summer shade, even smoked
by cans of fire, wetted with our darked-up sweat

we've made some scaresome tales. you, gone
out from home so overfull of wait, jumping in your
goodwill hip-hops, grinning fierce and silly, you,
nearly talking backwards, thinking jack's old
studebaker might make the road our bed; and me,
spouting rawsome poetries that you can't hear

if we walk far enough, won't we go up to the sea?
won't the salty lathers scrub us bare? you've
been humming that old baptist tune, but will it
get us on our way? they can smell our steps,
when they're out running like the dogs, barking
through the night time, sniffing all the posts

i should never dance with you, i can't lead,
you can't follow, and your hymn's an oddly frolic.
whoever told you it was proper? you hide
your hands in secret pockets, touching monies
put in haste, telling me they're found by walking,
charities, perhaps, from strangers and some fondlings

if i sit here long enough, some newly carved
performance art, giving jokes for quarters, haiku
blabbers for a sack of raisenettes, will i be discovered?
there's a window with a leather chair, and it's cleaned
near every day, like a prostie store in brussels,
rocking near the railroad tracks, neon red and yellow

we'll sleep there in the afternoons, warm our toes
in the pittsburgh sun, make a grimace face, wave
our arms, shake and rhumba for the tourists, arias
to the glitterati, a dollar for a photo, in advance
left by the door, i can wear a hat from paris, you
can skate around the floor, but i will never, ever

dance with you